T-totally amazing

I WAS interested to read about Kirsty Moore giving up alcohol for a month to raise awareness of cancer, the disease that killed her father (your report, 31 December).

We in Britain have a very strange relationship with alcohol. Over the festive period I spent time with several people who don’t drink, and they all told me stories about how other people respond when they discover this.

Often people simply don’t believe them. And if they do, they are either horrified, suspicious or utterly fascinated, and begin to ask nosy questions about their reasons (as you can probably tell, I was certainly guilty of the latter).

I recently started cutting down on drinking in order to lose some weight – and every time I turned one down I felt like I deserved a knighthood. Giving up for a whole month might seem like a small sacrifice, but it’s a very big deal. It shouldn’t be, but it is.

PAUL ALEXANDER

Church Hill

Edinburgh